South-South Trade: LDCs Doin' It for Themselves

Dependency theorists will have a more difficult time explaining how poor countries are increasingly trading with each other via South-South trade. How can they "exploit" each other when they are at similar levels of (under)development? About 25% of all trade is now of this form. The chart below comes from the 2014 World Economic Situation and Prospects. What's particularly notable is that the largest declines come from North-North trade, indicating once more how the developing world is largely picking up the slack. What's more, proportions of the classic forms of dependency theory--North South and South-North trade--are little changed.